Tim Howell’s Weblog

Following up on an earlier post, the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

“Australians will soon have the power to permanently hang-up on telemarketers under new laws being debated in the Senate.

The new laws will allow people to put their phone numbers on a Do Not Call Register that telemarketers must respect or face fines.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan told the Senate that Australians would embrace the register as they generally found telemarketing intrusive.

“We will give peace and mind to those who don’t like, and indeed resent, the intrusion and disruption caused by unsolicited telemarketing calls,” she told the Senate.

“The government has consulted widely … to ensure that there is an appropriate balance between the rights of an individual to privacy, and the need for business to promote their products and services.”

Registration will be available for fixed line and mobile phone numbers and will be free. The call ban will apply to Australian telemarketers and overseas callers working for Australian companies.”

An interesting development; will be interesting to see if anything similar is proposed for New Zealand.

A tip we’re using to great effect: if the phone rings before 7.30pm, our three year-old answers it. Guaranteed to confuse most telemarketers.

Rant time. Almost every second night for the past several weeks, including both Saturday and Sunday nights, we’ve been called up by one of several research houses looking to survey us for about a product, service or something else.

As a marketer, I completely understand the need for these organizations to understand and analyze what customers want, across a range of demographics and locations. And normally, we would participate in these. Inevitably our details would have been provided to the research houses by virtue of us signing up to something, purchasing a product or service etc. Surely there is a limit to how far this can go?

Recently, though, the volume of these calls has increased, as has the unsociability of many of the calls, to the extent I tend to decline the opportunity to participate. In the US, the Do Not Call Registry (thanks Michael) is designed to provide an opt-out opportunity for these types of communications. Is there - or is there going to be - an equivalent in New Zealand?

As a few people have commented, it’s been a while. I considered giving this up - have I really done enough to say I’m giving it up? - but there isn’t anyone out there saying what I want to say.

At the very least it gives me an excuse to analyze what’s happening out there, and I want to do that anyway, and who knows – others may be interested.

So here goes another attempt to put thoughts into words and see what happens.

For a company that makes most virtually all of its money from web-based advertising, Google is now extending its reach into other media following its acquisition of DMarc Broadcasting.

According to the News.com article, “Google plans to integrate DMarc technology into its AdWords platform, creating a new radio ad distribution channel for Google advertisers” and this is seen as a precursor to further ambitious moves as Google extends the AdWords advertising platform into other forms of media.

Exciting for advertisers who will be able to take advantage of increasingly specific, targeted advertising; and further indication that Google intends to be even more influential for buyers and sellers alike.